OK, so I'm late - but it's still the 9th across the Atlantic, right?

[dolabellae]

So I can still wish a_t_rain a very happy birthday indeed

Comments

[lyras]

I can so imagine Slughorn being the patron of the Hogwarts Development Office!

Loved the observations of the various babies, especially Draco looking like a white rat :).

Very interesting start - I look forward to seeing more!

Bit of concrit: Entertaining as those two opening paragraphs are, I found it difficult to get through them simply because of their position at the beginning of the story. They just look a bit daunting. How about starting with the dialogue and then working in all the description later on? Just an idea, and obviously you can tell me to get lost if you like!

[dolabellae]

As everyone said after HBP, Sluggers just screams 'Oxbridge don, Oxbridge don,' so once my mind started running along university lines, he had to come in!

My fics (and here I'm including the ones that never get finished) have a worrying number of babies in. I think something in my (not so) sub-conscious is trying to tell me things, alarmingly... I felt a bit guilty about baby!white rat! Draco, since in the Owls fic I wrote for dolorous_ett's birthday I had Vincent Crabbe compare a Draco & Pansy sprog to the white mice he was feeding to his owls - but I'm defending it to myself on the pseudy grounds of self-allusion!

Thanks so much for the concrit - I haven't posted any fic for so long and I really do appreciate criticism. I will definitely have a think about the dauntingness of the first paragraphs.

[tree_and_leaf]

You know, something about the Development Office sounds sort of familiar... - very good use for Slughorn, and I can see that it would end up full of Slytherins and people with Connections. Intriguing cliff-hanger - and I think the start is fine as it is.

[dolabellae]

something about the Development Office sounds sort of familiar... I can't think why...! I have a feeling that Development Offices are rather more of an 80s/90s development, really, but just as the wizarding world can be backward, it can also be oddly forward in some ways and I thought I could do things with the idea...

I don't know why I keep writing about Slytherins. It's probably a character flaw :-)

[nineveh_uk]

You capture just what I really resent about Development Offices: that they always seem to be advertising well-paid jobs, have cushy offices, are the only ones of us to get fun foreign trips, and I’m completely unsuited to the work. If I hear another speech about the 800th Year Campaign I am going to have to feign sudden incapacitating sickness - in fact, it’ll probably be real nausea. And Hilliard is such a patronising bastard.

I wonder what they were trying to get past Dumbledore? I do like the end.

[dolabellae]

Bother. Have just managed to delete my nearly-complete response to your comment... To recap - I thought at least a few people might get exactly where I was coming from with the Development Office! Hilliard is such a patronising bastard. Isn't he? Was rather worried about the ease with which I was writing about him, until I realised it was probably coming more from experiences of being patronised than being patronising myself. Which is still not a happy situation but at least one in which I am not morally culpable!

All will be revealed in due course! And I'm glad you like the end. I always feel shameless when I go for cliffhangers - which is daft, as they're such a classic feature of the serial - but on this occasion this point marked more or less where I'd got up to with fully written material, and I did want to post something for a_t_rain. Now I just have to write the rest!

[dolorous_ett]

Thank you for the plug! Though you're being modest as usual - I'm responsible for the idea of an alumni magazine, but not for the background - and I can see that this is going to be a much bigger work than mine.

I love the heirarchy, which has the unspeakable ring of truth - all those layers above Marcia, who does the actual work, and nobody listens to! And who better to head such an office than Slughorn?

Nice to see the tiny white rat-like Malfoy baby - perhaps it can be a ferret when it's grown up...

And what a cliffhanger! Can't wait for the next installment!

[dolabellae]

Credit where credit's due, I wouldn't have started writing this if it hadn't been for you. I'd just started to despair about my latest writing enterprise and you sparked off something (hopefull) a bit different in my mind, so thank you!

Poor Marcia. I am very fond of her already...

Nice to see the tiny white rat-like Malfoy baby Family resemblances which continue through the generations ahoy! I did think about.

Yay! I wrote a cliffhanger! With proper de der derr noises and everything! Glad you thought it worked. Will do my best to produce the next installment soon. (when I calm down a bit about actually having written fic and posted it...)

[snorkackcatcher]

Oh good, a fun start! That does sound pretty much what would be expected from a club run by Slughorn. :)

[dolabellae]

Thanks! It will get darker pretty quickly, but I was glad to find myself writing something that wasn't utterly bleak. Trying to make the rest follow quickly, but I seem to be drawn to writing the end at the moment...